It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. Lewis Carroll's classic tales of Alice go almost without introduction -- but many in our day and age know the story only from an infinity of TV adaptations. That's a shame, because Carroll was a delightful writer: ." . . Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door. . . . Poor Alice " Alice may be poor, but all who read of her are wealthy in a way that's utterly uncommon.